Serendipity: Moments of surprise help us focus on what matters

Saturday

Apr 12, 2014 at 4:00 PM

It’s been a whirlwind of travel these days. Planes, trains and automobiles. And hotels.

Usually the events we attend are held in the host hotel. Last week, we were at an event that was at a university. We zipped back to the hotel on our lunch break to discover four firetrucks in the parking lot. The immediate reaction was “Oh, no!”

My clothes! My jewelry! My computer! I had left my precious worldly belongings in the hotel room. Never had it popped into my head that the hotel could catch fire and my favorite speaking engagement clothes and my work/life known as my laptop could go up in smoke.

The firemen were just standing around. We were able to pull in the lot. The pavement was wet. There were no sirens. No people milling about. No commotion. The only confusion was on our part.

As we entered the lobby, the desk clerk looked up and smiled. That was another clue that we had no emergency.

When we asked why the fire brigade, she said they have them come out every year after all the winter snow has melted to hose off the parking lot. They use the fire hoses like a power washer to clean off the dirt and grime that had been hiding under the piles of dirty snow.

It was business as usual. No alarm, no fire. My stuff was safe. It made me think of how we easily jump to conclusions based on first glance. Four firetrucks must mean something is wrong! Nope.

How often do I see a situation and immediately judge or make assumptions? More than I realize. In many cases, things are not as they seem.

And how much do I rely on my computer? Too much. If the hotel had gone up in flames, I would be sad to lose my favorite outfits, but clothes are easily replaced. All my work on my computer and my client’s pages are not.

Luckily, I use various backups. I have the external hard drive, but that lives at home on my desk. I also use the online magic storage that I don’t understand, but it comes alive in the middle of the night and backs up everything. I also now have started putting the important works in Dropbox, or a cloud, or something.

This incident made me think of writers from long ago. If he or she had spent months typing their manuscript, neatly stacked the pages on their desk, and then poof it was gone, that would be devastating. They don’t have their chapters on a flash drive or in cyberstorage.

My love/hate relationship with technology leans more to the side of love most days, and especially this day.

Moments of surprise make us focus on what matters. Stuff is nice, and I love my stuff, but more stuff can be bought in a jiffy. Even if I had to do a speaking engagement in the clothes on my back because my awesome outfit was ruined, I would still be okay. My content is what matters.

What I write and what my clients write, I would be able to retrieve one way or another. That is a relief. Our content, what we write about and speak about, is the real treasure, and that exists within. Fire cannot claim your story.

When you come home to four firetrucks, the mind races. When it settles, you realize you have all that matters. The hand of a loving partner, and your stories. That instant evaluation is a gift. This was a false alarm. Many things in life are. And that in itself is a great reminder.

Kelly Epperson Simmons can be contacted toll free at 888-637-3563 or by email at info@kellyepperson.com.